Taking Stock of US-China Trade Tensions

As news came over the past week that China’s stock exchanges had slid into world number three position, falling behind Japan, on the back of international trade tensions and domestic moves to curb debt, microblog posts about stock markets, Trump and the “trade war” were heavily deleted on Sina Weibo.

This mirrored sensitivities in the traditional media, where pieces like this one from Caijing magazine — “Bickering to This Extent, Can China and the US Get Back to Where They Once Were?” — were also pulled from the internet.

The link for the Caijing magazine piece about US-China trade relations now turns up an error message: “The page does not exist. In 5 seconds you will be redirected to the homepage.”

The following are several posts listed together at the top of the deleted posts archive at the Weiboscope, compiled by our colleagues at the Journalism & Media Studies Centre.

2018-08-05 11:38:54 | Trump says that tariffs have already been a major harm to China, and this is seen in the fact that stock prices have fallen 27% in the past four months. But the question is whether China’s stock market has any connection to China’s real economy?

2018-08-05 11:31:06 | It’s very clear that A-shares are excessively bearish. But when can people be bullish again? I don’t know either.

2018-08-05 11:31:06 | 很显然，A股是过度悲观了。但是，人们什么时候可以乐观起来？我也不知道。 ​

——

2018-08-05 10:36:16 | Trump is most pleased with himself about how the US economy and stock market have risen since he came to office, and he has talked about the stock market in many settings, so he continues to push his hegemonic policies around the world. The China stock market slump has given him even more confidence. If we want to counter Trump and restrain his hegemonic policies, a good method is to push China’s stock market up and strike at his confidence. Why are we not doing that? The A-share market keeps on slumping, causing a great deal of harm. http://m.weibo.cn/1896820725/4269604815661377 ​

The China Media Project is an independent research, fellowship and exchange program in partnership with the Journalism & Media Studies Centre at the University of Hong Kong. The CMP fosters dialogue on key issues in Chinese media and communications, and monitors breaking developments in the field.